> “Innovation isn’t always a planned activity,” said Tim Cook, | on product

> “Innovation isn’t always a planned activity,” said Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, about post-pandemic work. “It’s bumping into each other over the course of the day and advancing an idea you just had.” Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said working from home “doesn’t work for spontaneous idea generation, it doesn’t work for culture.”

> The notion that spontaneous interactions in the office would spur creative thinking was a driving force behind (...) the Johnson Wax headquarters. (...) Silicon Valley companies began offering snack stations and on-site haircuts to foster impromptu gatherings. (...) Yet Professor Bernstein found that contemporary open offices led to 70 percent fewer face-to-face interactions. People didn’t find it helpful to have so many spontaneous conversations, so they wore headphones and avoided one another.

> People who study the issue say (…) [that working in person] may even hurt innovation, because the demand for doing office work at a prescribed time and place is a big reason the American workplace has been inhospitable for many people. (...) People who are shy; who need to live far from the office; who are productive at odd hours; or who were excluded from golf games or happy hours.

> “One of our big fears is that if we don’t get this right, we create this two-tier employee reality — who’s in the room, who’s not, who’s playing the politics, who’s not,” Mr. Spaulding at Zillow said. “We believe humans want to connect and collaborate. But do you need to do that five days a week, or can you do that once every three months?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/upshot/remote-work-innovation-office.html